How to choose a diversity of species
As noted above, candidates for the list of ‘selected, representative species’ might be species with management or recovery plans, species that have been Red List assessed, species of known ecological or economic importance, species of national concern, or species monitored by a national biodiversity entity or citizen scientists. They should be representative (e.g. able to provide a representative picture of what other species are experiencing for the indicators). This may include species of commercial interest, but should not be limited to commercially important species. If possible, the species should represent a diversity of at least some of:
If possible, also include a range of:
Value (economic, ecological, social)
Traits (body size, lifespan/ generation time, dispersal)
The ability to fully include all of these areas will vary by country, due to native levels of biodiversity and capacity/ data availability. Further discussion of categories of species can be found inHollingsworth et al 2020, page 22-24. Full taxonomic and ecological diversity will be hard, or impossible, for the first application of an indicator. Bias, including focus on some taxonomic groups e.g. initiated with trees, amphibians, birds, medicinal plants, etc., is ok, as bias will be noted in reporting. Even a first attempt helps a country set up the infrastructure and methods of data analysis. We have created a ‘species selection matrix’ as a guide to help countries visualize and document the types of species chosen.
For wild species, usually the species considered should usually be native (e.g. non-introduced, non-invasive). Note however, that this indicator can also be applied to crops, domesticated animals, and crop wild relatives, and in such cases non-native species would be ok.
Keep the same species list while collecting data It is important to fill in the Kobo form for every species on the 100+ species list- even if there is little data available, and even if the indicator cannot be calculated. In other words, we expect some proportion of this list to have no useful data and that is ok (see Fig 2). Knowing how much data is missing will provide valuable insight into challenges countries will face in assessing species for these indicators and where data are lacking. However, if missing data is extensive (say, >50% of the species list), country teams may revisit their original species list and continue to add more species.
Figure 2: Conceptual illustration of the fact that each country will evaluate >100 species, and that some proportion of species evaluated will have insufficient data for calculation of the indicators. The proportion of X/(X+Y) may (possibly, but not necessarily) suggest some groups or countries that consistently have limited data for calculating indicators.